Setting the Stage
by TheWayfaringStranger
Summary: Rose hopes that she said the right words at the right time. Set right after Turn Left of Season Four, with a bit of timey-wimey-ness. One-shot. Complete.


**Warning: spoilers for ****Turn Left and Partners in Crime****.**

* * *

As Donna Noble closed her eyes and died in the middle of the street, the world faded to nothing in front of Rose's eyes. Two words. Whispered into the ear of the dying woman. In another time, in another place, and perhaps, if Rose was a different person, sending a message using the dying would make no sense at all--but this was Donna. Time did strange things around this woman that could not be explained, not yet. Rose waited--_one, two_--then got up and walked back into the Doctor's universe. Her old universe. And the universe where, if things had gone right, the Doctor was alive again.

She was in London, at night, near a crowd. Donna was near--she had to be--it was easy using Miss Noble as a beacon when Rose walked between the worlds. Rose looked at the sky. The stars were still shining, and she tried not to think about how much longer that would be. She drew near the crowd of people, and saw that they were staring up and ahead, standing against some metal crowd barriers, talking about strange but cute little white creatures. Of course--the Adipose. If all had gone well, if things had gone right... then only a few people had died from being converted into fat, instead of several million. She drew near the barrier, then, senses tingling, turned around, and saw an excited, exuberant, and very much alive Donna Noble approaching her.

"Listen..." said the very-much-alive Donna Noble. "There's this woman, who's going to come along. Tall, blonde woman called Silvia. Tell her, that bin there. Right, it'll all make sense. That bin there." Her cheeks were flushed, and without waiting for an answer--so great was her excitement--the woman whirled around, her hair flying, and ran off. Everything about her was so full of life, and Rose wanted to be glad at that--except she knew what that life had cost, and what was coming next. Donna was the most important woman in the whole of creation.

At least, things were as they should be again. For the moment. Donna had turned left, had met the Doctor, had saved his life, and met him again, and would now become--was now becoming--his companion and walking into the TARDIS. The Doctor would survive the Racnoss, the Sontaran and Judoon encounters, as would Martha Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, and most of his team... and Rose knew all of them would be needed for what was coming...but even so, she didn't know if this would be enough.

Rose walked away from the crowd. There was work to be done. Donna and the Doctor had to be kept alive, and they had to stay together. Rose would help make sure of that. Somewhere, in another time and place, but at least it was in _this_ universe, the Doctor's universe, Donna would be recalling the two words Rose had spoken. Rose knew they were the right words needed to alert the Doctor. She knew that, as Donna spoke them, they would be uttered at the right time and place. Because it was _Donna_, and because Rose had been trying to contact him too many times before to no avail. Bad Wolf knew more than Rose did--knew the possibilities, saw everything that could ever be. Sometimes Rose could see and understand--and sometimes she couldn't. And everything she saw, and everything she didn't see terrified her inside. Rose was only Defender of the Earth--and if all the worlds in all the Universes were being threatened, then they all needed the Doctor.

And she didn't know if this would be enough.

As she crossed into the next universe, she hoped that _he_ would understand, hoped that when the time came, she could explain that she had done only what she could do--her best. Everything she did now, everything she was doing, was for the sake of saving them all--all the worlds, and she was only doing what Bad Wolf had foreseen would need to be done.

And she didn't know if it would be enough.

END


End file.
